I am in the midst of grading my 8th graders’ first interpretive paper of the school year. I am pleasantly surprised by what I see in the first few papers. My students are thinking deeply and engaging in the text based on the evidence they pull from the story. I breathe a sigh of relief, and keep slogging through the remaining 63 essays. The next essay is by “Johnny,” a low-intermediate English learner. He just moved here from […]

If you read our recent two-part blog series about classroom discussions (What If No One Talks – Part 1 and Part 2) you might be in search of more strategies for apprenticing students to productive discussions in your classroom. We polled our fabulous team of master Inquiry By Design teachers and here are some of their favorites.

1. THINK-PAIR-SHARE

Asking students to write and discuss ideas with a partner before sharing with the larger group gives students more time to compose their […]

We are always concerned for our struggling learners. Of course we are. So when a teacher first encounters the crazy-complex texts in an Inquiry By Design unit, that teacher may be a little skeptical, or hesitant, or even terrified.

Well, take a deep breath because there are several research-based reasons why those might be the very students to excel with challenging texts and an inquiry based pedagogy. (If you missed reasons 1-3, go here.)